7 hours ago, RNAVV19R said:

Haven’t experienced any of the issues discussed in this thread.

Of course, they all drive at the wrong side of the motorway too. 🙄

No offence meant😂

I had to get rid of BATC. It was on rails and often just didn't get the basics right.

As for its very expensive competitor, I'm now very impressed. Separation, traffic alerts, taxi conflict avoidance, near immaculate routings, holds, shortcuts. It's amazing, and worth the money.

2 hours ago, Langeveldt said:

I had to get rid of BATC. It was on rails and often just didn't get the basics right.

As for its very expensive competitor, I'm now very impressed. Separation, traffic alerts, taxi conflict avoidance, near immaculate routings, holds, shortcuts. It's amazing, and worth the money.

I have to agree that the ATC is the best with Si... Even traffic wise one thing it has going for it is the Taxituner which allows traffic not to be bound by the usually broken taxi nodes 3rd party developers usually ignore... Crowd sourcing is the way!

On 6/19/2026 at 3:20 PM, Ricardo41 said:

Vectoring during the approach phase is mostly garbage.

BATC provides some background ATC chatter, and it can now inject real live traffic. The voices are decent. That's about it.

This ^ BATC gets me off the ground in decent shape, provides me with lots of company (on the ground, I don't see very many aircraft in flight) and once I'm at TOD, I just ignore it. Try as they might, with all the breathless "updates" the release on a weekly basis, they still can't seem to make any real progress.

I always was a critic of BATC, especially regarding the TOD and the following descent path, especially when not using a STAR (getting vectored).

But my own experience is actually - since one of the last 2 or 3 updates - that it got much better. They did make some backoffice changes in the descend calculation and how the pilot is handled (when no alt restrictions are on the way down), that are helping the pilot to have a bit more 'freedom' to manage their descend accordingly. Approaching with a STAR (especially when the STAR has any kind of alt restriction), BATC works best - but it always did.

But I like getting vectored, even if there are STARs available. It's a bit more 'dynamic'. So I leave out any STAR nearly half of my approaches. Even at big airports. And I think BATC got better recently. Not perfect - but clearly better than before.

What BATC still hardly can accomplish: vectoring to a runway, you already flew direct in when nearing the airport. Example: fly from EDDF to EGLL, with the 27 rwys in use at EGLL - and don't use any STAR in the SB flightplan. You'll come from the east and fly directly into the rwy heading at around 270°. Should be easy for BATC just to vector you straight in/down, one may think. But it seems not, at least not with the alts.

(btw: I don't know how BATC is performing in the US, since I hardly fly there and some procedures are different in FAA land)

Edited Sunday at 01:07 PM2 days by Watsi

I can see why SayIntentions appeals if separation and taxi conflict handling are the main priority. For my own use, the subscription side is still the sticking point, because I do not fly enough every single month to make that feel painless.

That is why I still judge all of these ATC tools mostly on the boring parts: descent planning, vectors, sequencing, and what they do when traffic is actually around. BATC has very good radio ambience, no argument there, but once I am babysitting the arrival and traffic awareness myself, it stops feeling like the main ATC tool and starts feeling more like background chatter.

On 6/20/2026 at 2:52 AM, Funky D said:

I loathe the default ATC as much as everyone else, but I just find it a bit sad that even the add-on products have the same issues as the default ATC.

The odd thing is that BATC didn't have these issues that are often mentioned for a very long time. But, for some reason, the programme is steadily regressing, becoming increasingly unstable and unreliable, and getting cluttered with unnecessary features, such as GSX integration.

When I bought Beyond two years ago, I was really happy with it. These days, however, every flight just annoys me. This is because traffic is getting in the way again, controllers are issuing stupid vectors, and traffic still costs me 20–25 FPS, etc.

I know it's Early Access, but that usually implies development, not continuous breakdown.

Keep in mind I'm not neutral when reading this (see signature), but this is my honest opinion as a customer nonetheless:

I've using BeyondATC daily from day one, so 2+ years. The progress is immense in those two years. Seriously, you should look back what issues there were in 2024 and compare that to now.
Of course it does have some temporary regressions while trying to fix complex stuff for good (for example right now a complete overhaul of ground handling is in internal testing, with the aim to prevent stuck traffic much more reliably), but that's the nature of an early access product. Keep in mind BATC can inject a lot more traffic than any other tool (especially if you are using live traffic) and this does increase the complexity even further; it's not an easy task (if it was, someone else would have done it ages ago and we'd be all using that software). It does frustrate me too at times, but it's still the most reliable tool, and I've tried them all (and I also regularly watch videos with flights with SI, so I know the progress [or lack of] there).
I'd love to fly with Vatsim and I do every once in a while (1000+ hours), but it's so limited quantity wise (either overcrowded or deserted, nothing in between), that just doesn't make fun.

I know for a fact that the big anonymous survey BeyondATC has made with its userbase has given a very positive overall feedback, so - contrary to this thread - most people are overall happy with the progress and current state and are using BATC for most of their flights. On the other hand I can tell you for a fact that the devs are aware of all the issues and flaws and what's still missing (we make sure they know, that's the advantage of such a huge huge userbase) and - which is even more important - are constantly working on it.

EDIT: And as for "unnecessary features" - yes GSX integration ended up being one of them (which is more due to GSX), but CPDLC support and live traffic are immensely popular with the userbase and have led to an influx of a lot of new users on top. Other than that I don't see any unnecessary features? I mean if we are talking stuff like cabin crew voices or the webcam watching you while you're playing in order to know whether you're still at the keyboard, that's not BATC, that's another tool...

Edited Sunday at 08:08 PM2 days by Fiorentoni

On 6/21/2026 at 2:03 PM, Fiorentoni said:

I know for a fact that the big anonymous survey BeyondATC has made with its userbase has given a very positive overall feedbac

Thank you for your insights and dedication to BATC. Despite its shortcomings I always use it. Is there any chance in the Premium captain's voice options we might be able to access various languages such as German, French, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Norwegian? I would love to have those because as stated previously there are enough times that BATC seems to fail as an ATC agent such that I'm use it mostly for ambience. Point being, despite this, I still always use BATC FWIW. Some things it does do puzzle me. For example you might be 190 miles from destination and BATC ask you to verify you see the airport, things like that that seem so basic it's puzzling it's not been addressed. Or, sending an airplane rated for a minimum runway of 5600' on a runway that is 3200'. And in general it too often sends you in too high. So it's like it's really not monitoring the plane in much detail. But def agreed, it continues improving. My other big issue is the low quality traffic animation, compared to other injectors like FSLTL. And I understand basically why so not looking for a rationale for it. So I use BATC for ambience mostly, and still use FSLTL's injection. I periodically come back to try BATC's traffic but the other issue there is that it makes Premium voices too expensive. Thanks again

I find BATC quite disappointing. It lacks situational awareness—it cannot track your position or actions effectively—and essentially functions as little more than an automated voice system. On top of that, it is excessively heavy on RAM usage.

Because sime in an other thread said how good BATC has become, i tried it again last weekend. Was okay for the most part. But on fact SI is for me the much more complete solution. More immersive.

Regarding TOD. Even in real world ATC does not know the exact TOD for every aircraft, so i would guess it's quite normal to make a "ready to decent" call.

13 hours ago, Noel said:

Is there any chance in the Premium captain's voice options we might be able to access various languages such as German, French, Italian, Russian, Spanish, Norwegian?
Yes that's already in internal testing and should come with the next update :)

My other big issue is the low quality traffic animation, compared to other injectors like FSLTL. And I understand basically why so not looking for a rationale for it. So I use BATC for ambience mostly, and still use FSLTL's injection.
The reason is that FSLTL (and others) are not really controlling the aircraft but rather send it to the MSFS default traffic engine, which then does its thing internally. But we all know the limits of the MSFS traffic engine, so that's not really an option if you want immersion!
BATC on the other side simulates the entire AI traffic externally, what you see in the sim is a mere visual representation of that simulation. A bit like Fenix but for AI traffic if you will :) Now the disadvantage is that BATC has to send the aircrafts position, speed, rotation etc. to MSFS multiple times a second, for each aircraft, via Simconnect. But Simconnect has a rate limit AFAIK and this creates a small delay/lag in the animations sometimes. You can see the same on Vatsim by the way if there's a lot of traffic.

On 6/21/2026 at 11:03 PM, Fiorentoni said:

Keep in mind I'm not neutral when reading this (see signature), but this is my honest opinion as a customer nonetheless:

I've using BeyondATC daily from day one, so 2+ years. The progress is immense in those two years. Seriously, you should look back what issues there were in 2024 and compare that to now.
Of course it does have some temporary regressions while trying to fix complex stuff for good (for example right now a complete overhaul of ground handling is in internal testing, with the aim to prevent stuck traffic much more reliably), but that's the nature of an early access product. Keep in mind BATC can inject a lot more traffic than any other tool (especially if you are using live traffic) and this does increase the complexity even further; it's not an easy task (if it was, someone else would have done it ages ago and we'd be all using that software). It does frustrate me too at times, but it's still the most reliable tool, and I've tried them all (and I also regularly watch videos with flights with SI, so I know the progress [or lack of] there).
I'd love to fly with Vatsim and I do every once in a while (1000+ hours), but it's so limited quantity wise (either overcrowded or deserted, nothing in between), that just doesn't make fun.

I know for a fact that the big anonymous survey BeyondATC has made with its userbase has given a very positive overall feedback, so - contrary to this thread - most people are overall happy with the progress and current state and are using BATC for most of their flights. On the other hand I can tell you for a fact that the devs are aware of all the issues and flaws and what's still missing (we make sure they know, that's the advantage of such a huge huge userbase) and - which is even more important - are constantly working on it.

EDIT: And as for "unnecessary features" - yes GSX integration ended up being one of them (which is more due to GSX), but CPDLC support and live traffic are immensely popular with the userbase and have led to an influx of a lot of new users on top. Other than that I don't see any unnecessary features? I mean if we are talking stuff like cabin crew voices or the webcam watching you while you're playing in order to know whether you're still at the keyboard, that's not BATC, that's another tool...

To be honest, I am a BATC user too. I am also developing a brand-new ATC experience called ACE of ATCs, so yes, I understand that my opinion may sound biased. But in reality, we are all in the same boat here. BATC is one of the products that proved people really want a better ATC experience in MSFS, and I genuinely like it.

That being said, if we are going to talk about how the system works, some parts of BATC feel very constrained to me.

Let me give a few examples.

1. If I ask for a shortcut, I would expect the ATC system to evaluate the route, traffic situation, sector constraints, and then either issue a direct routing or say unable. Instead, it often asks me for the fix name, then asks me to confirm the same fix again. To me, that feels more like a slot-based interaction than true context-aware ATC decision making.

2. If I ask for an updated METAR, the interaction can fall out of the expected flow. Sometimes the system does not really handle it naturally, or it reacts as if I did not answer the previous expected prompt. That breaks the immersion.

3. The LLM side feels very tightly constrained by retrieval and predefined flows. I understand why that is done from a product safety and reliability perspective, but it can make the experience feel less alive when the conversation moves outside the expected path.

4. After a few flights, the user can start to predict what the ATC will say next. For example, if your OFP says your cruise altitude is FL360, you can often guess what the next climb instruction will be when you contact Departure. That is not necessarily wrong, but it makes the system feel predictable rather than reactive.

5. Vectoring is one of the biggest issues for me. I do not want to be unfair, because vectoring is very hard to get right. But real-world vectoring is not just pathfinding from point A to point B. It needs traffic awareness, sequencing logic, local procedures, terrain, MSA, approach geometry, runway configuration, spacing, and controller intent.

6. For approaches, it is not enough to just get the aircraft to the runway. The system needs to understand what is written in the IAP, how the chart is structured, what the MSA is, what the aircraft can realistically do, and what kind of approach style makes sense in that specific situation.

And one final note about CPDLC. Compared to sequencing, vectoring, procedure interpretation, aircraft behavior, and real-time traffic planning, CPDLC transport itself is one of the more straightforward parts. It is mostly structured messages, request/response handling, message correlation, and session state. The difficult part is not sending a CPDLC message. The difficult part is making the system behind that message understand why that clearance should be issued in the first place.

Again, I like BATC. I use it, and in a strange way, BATC is one of the reasons we decided to build ACE of ATCs. It showed that people really want this kind of experience.

But I also believe the hard part is not just making an ATC talk.

The hard part is making it think, plan, vector, sequence, and react like an ATC system.

/Anil

I was highly critical of BATC in the past, but the last couple of main updates (I'm not in the experimental build) have smoothed over a lot of issues I had with vectoring. It still isn't perfect, but I feel like it gives me solid instructions most of the time, even with my flying into smaller, regional type airports without STARs. I haven't gotten "forgotten" about or given really weird wrong way type instructions in awhile.

It was weird, a few patches ago there was one that was supposed to help vectoring, but it didn't for me, but follow up ones got better. Descents are still late, but I just start early and the ATC doesn't seem to mind. For the most part, it is vectoring me to a reasonable path for final now.

IIRC, traffic spacing is still in very early stages and is clearly quiet rough. The big thing is it doesn't seem to know the difference in speeds of various planes. They told me to slow down in my Bonanza, and I slowed down and got someone flying up my tail. Hopefully future updates will address that. This is still early access of course. I don't use any payware products, so I'm not sure if anyone does that better, but I've never seen any ATC program that can handle any kind of heavy traffic volume. For me price is the #1 factor.

On 6/21/2026 at 11:09 AM, Langeveldt said:

I had to get rid of BATC. It was on rails and often just didn't get the basics right.

As for its very expensive competitor, I'm now very impressed. Separation, traffic alerts, taxi conflict avoidance, near immaculate routings, holds, shortcuts. It's amazing, and worth the money.

I call fake advertizing. I tested SI for 2 Months last Summer and I was not impressed at all. Everything to do with the core of ATC it does way worse than BATC.